There have always been the mountain herbalists, the grannies and the people who have used weeds and plants as medicine.

For a couple of decades, we were encouraged to look to exotic plants from far-off lands to use as medicines, ignoring those that grow all around us. Perhaps, because of the locavore movement, we are now looking to the medicinal weeds and herbs that grow right outside our doors.

It is not uncommon for people to tell me that they’ve sent off for seeds for plants like chickweed, dandelion and burdock—it can be difficult to convince people that the dandelions in their yard are the exact same thing that they are wishing to grow.

This is not unlike our tendency to drive past vast wild raspberry patches in order to plunk down $3 for a pint of cultivated berries at the store; we have become so distanced from our food sources that we’ve learned not to trust ourselves when it comes to things like foods or first aid.

Sometimes, people are completely overwhelmed at the thought of learning all about medicinal herbs—that’s easy to understand. There are thousands of plants with properties that we can use; there are very few that we cannot, as a matter of fact and it is a lot of information to learn.